Wigan, Wolves Looking For New Gaffers

It’s a good job I haven’t left for my trip up North yet, because two more clubs decided enough was enough today.

Wigan Athletic preview, 29/07/16: ‘Only one of the last five winners of League One has been relegated immediately (Doncaster Rovers in 2014) but Wigan’s final points tally last season was the second lowest amount to win the title over the last decade and was only three points better than Doncaster’s was. That may be significant, but I’d expect Wigan to be comfortably mid table. If they do better than that, expect Gary Caldwell to be linked with all kinds of jobs.’

Admittedly, I didn’t mention what would happen to Gary Caldwell if that scenario didn’t happen…but now we know. The Latics have lost half of their league games this season and have scored one goal in their last four. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Wigan were on the three teams that had spent the majority of the last decade in the Premier League and clearly the expectation was that they’d be back there soon.

The situation at Wolves was very predictable. After the baffling dismissal of Kenny Jackett before the season, I wrote this as an update to the Wolves preview that I published on the same day as the Wigan version:

‘Update: Jackett was sacked after this part of the preview was posted and replaced by Walter Zenga, the former Italian international goalkeeper. Zenga has no experience of managing in the UK and doesn’t seem to hang around very long.’

After a reasonable start, Wolves have lost four of their last five league games and are currently eighteenth.